HarmoKnight - actually, I have used the service. Obviously not on the 3DS, but the service itself, yes.
@Capt_N it won't likely come out of Japan because, while technically feasable, this music service isn't available out of Japan, and it has no licenses whatsoever, outside of Japan.
So Nintendo would need to renegotiate a music partnership with someone else for every other region in the world. It lacks the capacity to do this, I suspect.
I'm pretty happy with the way Nintendo is approaching retail downloads. It's maintaining a premium price (which I am in support of), and it's surprisingly rapidly catching up to the other three platform holders - It took a year or so from when Sony started offering retail downloads to when games would see a simultaneous retail/ download release.
Nintendo needed to catch up with this and quick because the specialist retailers are quickly headed the way of the dinosaur, so good moves Nintendo. Now just switch over to account-based content and I'll be a happy camper.
@theblackdragon Ok, so I've done a bit of research. That report, produced by Michael Olson on behalf of Piper Jaffrey (an investment bank, for the record, not an "analyst firm") was produced because Piper Jaffrey has downgraded Zynga's share value to "neutral." The basis of this downgrade was based on overwhelming evidence that school kids are playing fewer social games. That's why this report exists - it was a study into Zynga's market potential:
At no stage does the coverage of the report in the financial press mention console gaming as a reason for this decline. So I went back to the Gamasutra article, and yep, my suspicion was correct - Gamasutra came up with that cause-and-effect based largely on other reports by other research groups, as well as a comparison to an older Piper Jaffray report. There are no hard-and-fast numbers as far as I can tell about console gaming numbers amongst teenagers from this report. At no stage from the research I've just done did the Piper Jaffray report itself state "kids are playing fewer social games because they are playing more console games."
Furthermore, if you look into the analyst himself, Michael Olson does not have any of the console producers under the body of companies he researches - he has some publishers like Activision Blizzard and EA, but not Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony (or even Apple). It is very unlikely that he would be researching the sales figures or interest in console gaming - these guys don't have the time to do research outside of their portfolios:
None of this stacks up to me - at best (if it was accurate reporting) it is a very poorly written news story by Gamasutra. But, more likely, it is a beat-up.
Not that I particularly blame NintendoLife for this now - Gamasutra has a well-deserved reputation for accurate reporting. But I strongly suspect they got this one very wrong.
@theblackdragon True, but there is still no indication that a drop off in social gaming is causing an uptick in console gaming.
Don't forget - the report also specifically states that the console business is still dropping off itself. This isn't a case of "7 per cent fewer teens play social games, and magically 7 per cent more teens play console games." That would be a clear and direct link. This is "less people playing social games, and the console business with needs remains robust, considering the downturn in other demographics."
I just don't see any hard data that states the 7 per cent or so of students that stopped playing social games have started playing console games. Especially when there is no data whatsoever about teenagers playing phone games.
It may well be that there is the link there, but Gamasutra has not made this clear, and without any access to the report, there's no way to verify the inferences that everyone is making here.
@theblackdragon TBD - I just had another look (I'll happily admit I skimmed it this morning), and I'm still not seeing the direct correlation between Teenagers playing social games less because they were more interested in console gaming.
What I see is the following - Teenagers are playing social games yes. Teenagers are more comfortable with downloading AAA-grade games rather than buying physical copies, and the entire console market is down, but the youth segment remains relatively robust.
There is no information to suggest that teenagers are swapping FarmVille for Call of Duty. That's an inference people are making.
One of the posters above posted the inference I would have been making - that teens are playing Angry Birds and other phone games instead of social games.
Gamasutra is making inferences too, and I'm not happy about that at all. A community website is one thing - an industry publication really shouldn't be drawing connections without hard evidence to conclusively demonstrate the link.
@HarmoKnight - read back your first post. You seemed to think that the entire lot - 7.3 million units of Wii U - had been "sold out."
That is incorrect. Amazingly enough, there are other nations in the world. These other nations are getting Wii Us shipped to them as well - so some of that 7.3 million is not actually getting sent to America.
And aside from America I've yet to see a report that the Wii U had sold out anywhere else.
So, no, you're wrong to think that Nintendo has "sold 7.3 million Wii Us." That is incredibly unlikely at this stage.
Damien, can you please clarify where the report specifically states that kids are playing fewer social games because they are playing consoles instead? Right now it reads like you made that association up and as everyone should know, that is taking two and two and getting seven.
@ThePillowGolem I've tried speaking reasonably with people in the past. The problem with being reasonable is that it only works when the other side of the debate is also being reasonable. With certain people that's just become a completely pointless exercise.
If you are a frequent visitor to the forums you'd see that when people are actually interested in being engaging and reasonable, so am I.
@Zombie_Barioth Complaining? No. Setting the record straight. Too many people seem to think that just because they can voice an opinion that 1) it makes them right, and 2) they're entitled to be taken seriously.
No, and no. If people were more concerned about being factually correct, than simply being about to say anything and hiding behind it as 'having an opinion', the whole world would be in a far better place.
When. HarmoKnight. When have I ever defended another company or individual actually stealing IP from Nintendo? Find me one genuine example in any of my posts on NintendoLife (or anywhere else on the Internet, ever) and I will happily apologise to you.
Here's the difference between you and I. I actually have qualifications in media law. I know what I'm talking about. I would never defend plagiarism or patent infringement. In fact, I hate the very thought of either.
Your idea of both is "did Nintendo do something similar? Yes? STEALING."
@HarmoKnight If it was genuinely unfair then the courts will throw it out. "Unfair according to some dude that hasn't read the precise wording of the contract and doesn't have a degree in law," is not really a perspective of strength.
Armchair 'experts' are JUST AWESOME. Whoever needs lawyers any more. We should just ask Nintendolife for their balanced and informed judgements on all matters.
Damo - how many content companies does Nintendo own? What resources does it have to scope out major partnerships?
This isn't a matter of just sticking a TV card into the console. If Nintendo wants to compete with Apple, Sony, Microsoft, the telecommunications companies themselves and a HOST of smaller niche players, then Nintendo is going to need to make massive investments.
That is precisely what Sony did - invest in being a content rather than device supplier, as content is the cruicial product in entertainment services. It has put the company in a dire financial situation.
At best Nintendo's non-gaming entertainment offerings is going to amount to a tenth-rung, substandard service. The only people that will ever bother with it are the people that don't use Apple, Google, Microsoft and other products. Ever.
That's almost no one, and certainly not enough to support any real push by Nintendo.
So Nintendo thinks of itself as an "entertainment" company because it uses Mario and Zelda and has some casual game franchise for the grandparents to play along with. Good to know he can interchange "gaming" with "entertainment" when it suits his marketing message.
Reggie's fooling himself if he actually thinks that Nintendo has any potential play outside of interactive software. It's like, last, in a long, long stream of competition.
"and not, "Jerry Lambert is not supposed to appear alongside a Nintendo product." Which is what I based my argument off of."
The thing is that when there is a specially recognisable face, then the actor and character are often considered for commercial purposes inseparable. Again, this would be in the contract, as I would assume Sony would not sue without some evidence backing it up.
@Raptor78 Sony's music (and film) divisions are run entirely separate to the other Sony business units. They have different managing directors, different legal teams, and different approaches to marketing. Big companies like Sony tend to be competitive in some areas with other big companies, and allies in others.
"I just dont understand Sony sometimes."
I wouldn't worry about that. You're in the majority there.
@HarmoKnight Nah bro. What's low is when people who don't know anything about a subject use a public forum to express their completely uninformed opinions. Because then there's the chance that someone might read the comment, think it's a good idea, and then take that ignorance into the world as fact.
My momma always told me that if I don't know what I'm talking about, I should shut up. I think a few million people on the internet should have learned that same lesson.
@jkshaz As long as people are in so desperate need for education, I will remain on this pedestal. One would hope that by pointing out how silly they are being, people will stop voicing silly opinions and expecting to be taken seriously. Unfortunately we seem to live in a world where sheer ignorance is protected by calling it an "opinion."
But I continue to fight the good fight.
@grimbldoo - actually what you said means absolutely nothing whatsoever if Lambert signed a contract with a clause not to represent competitive brands.
Believe it or not but we live in a society where "BUT MUM ITS MY FACE" is not an acceptable excuse for breaching a contract. Not when you've associated your face with a brand in a legally-binding contract.
See how I keep using the word "contract?" That's because that's the bit that's important here. You, sir, clearly don't understand "non-compete" clauses. I would bet my house it is such a clause that is why Sony is able to sue over this.
@grimbldoo As Lambert's face was for many years associated exclusively with Sony, it was likely written into his contract from the very start that he would not represent a competitive brand.
By being associated with a Nintendo product, however tangentally, Lambert likely breached this noncompete clause in his contract and Sony would be well within its rights to seek damages.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you analyse contract law. Believe it or not, contract law doesn't work like high school playground politics.
Oh here's one I can field! You're entitled to an opinion, Otaku. What you're not entitled to is being right, or having that opinion taken seriously. If you can't argue a solid case for you opinion, than everyone out there has every right to point out how flawed your opinion is.
I'm off to play unreleased games again. Play nice folks.
Wow. You mean a Nintendo PR manager, working for a company that doesn't produce Smartphones or games for Smartphones, and has lost a lot of customers to smartphones, is critical of smartphones as gaming devices?
Could it be maybe, just mabye, this is what we in journalism call 'PR speak?' Surely the editors of Nintendolife would never have dreamed of such an unethical practice as promoting PR speak as editorial coverage.
... Oh. Ah well, I guess the 250+ comments pretty much justifies anything.
And here I was sure that you were one of those people that don't think the iPad is a good gaming device. I must have been mistaken, because, you know, ten times the 3DS' sales figures clearly, by your logic, means ten times superior gaming device
I'll believe this when I see it. eShop was meant to be an improvement, too, but it's improvements were so small that Nintendo managed to lose ground on the competition.
I mean, the Vita has the freaking PSN and PSPlus! eShop gets like, one dinky little download game a week, and one Virtual Console release. No premium service, either.
StrawHat - oh, because of two reasons - 1) I would screw up somehow and blow up my PS3 by opening it up to chuck in a better HD, and 2) the console is 3-4 years old now and I use it daily. It'll likely start to fail on me soon anyway.
Thank God for Cloud saves and PSPlus.
3Dash - Usually I have 10 on rotation. It's nice to not have to download 25GB games again though if I need to delete them to free up space. Or to think of it another way - How many discs do you have? I'm sure it's more than the number of games you're playing at any one time.
3Dash - you mean for services that have real games for download, not WiiWare's mini game gallery?
There are 20-25gb games for download on PSN. I have a 250GB HD on my PS3, and I can only fit a small fraction of my games on it. In fact I am going to buy the new PS3 solely for tha expanded HD.
And finally - what does 'do you need it' have to do with this discussion? It exists, and it was misreporting to claim that the only new PS3 model Sony has in the market was a 12GB one.
Nice to see regard for the facts here. Like how the new PS3 also has a 500GB model for sale.
Oh hang on. I just needed to point that out here. NOW all the facts are out there.
Also, this guy is just stating a fact. The reason that they call the demographic 'early adopters' is because they're the first ones to buy a console. And who will be the people buying Wii Us this Christmas? The first people to buy Wii Us in the world. Ergo, early adopters.
But don't let any of these facts get in the way of whatever everyone up there is doing.
I like how everyone is ignoring the fact that the only advantage the Wii U has over the other consoles, the gamepad, is badly used here, and that apparently still hasn't been fixed.
I'll just get it for $7 rather than $110 (Australian) on the iPad. lol.
While I admit I didn't word it especially well, my own comments are with regards to the prevailing attitude that in isolation the hardware business is worth keeping. It's not. Were it not for licenses and Nintendo's own software, the hardware side of Nintendo's business would be nothing - a tiny, if not bankrupted company. What I was getting at (very badly, reading back on it now, my apologies) is that the overall cost of hardware (including logistics, R & D etc) is typically a loss leading practice, because for most top hardware companies, it's rather unnecessary for the hardware division to turn an overall profit.
The value in hardware is the associated content and services. That's where competitive differentiation comes from, and that's where Nintendo's ability to even earn a worthwhile profit on its consoles comes from. If Nintendo didn't have content and services, all Nintendo could compete with in hardware is price, and as we've seen with the TV industry, commodity competition is not necessarily a healthy one right now. Especially for Japanese corporations that have higher working costs than their Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean counterparts.
The relevance of this to the topic at hand? The assumption that Nintendo's hardware business is crucial to its survival or profitability. It is, but not because of the actual sale of hardware - as some have inferred. The value in the hardware is from the licensing side of things. Even if Nintendo has costed to profit on Wii U hardware overall, it's not necessary in the slightest, and I am a little surprised that Nintendo didn't follow industry trend to loss-lead with the Wii U. I guess they're working on the basis that the third party support is strong and will remain so, even if they don't sell quite as many units as they would have by loss leading.
And I hope that is somewhat clearer. This has been a long day.
I like how I said that the money from hardware comes from licensing, and then I was corrected by someone telling me the money from hardware comes from licensing.
And @Damo I realise that this kind of article appeals to a lot of people on a Nintendo fan site, but people who buy The Sun don't buy it because they are not interested in its content, either.
You guys are better than this. You guys are one of the best gaming websites out there. No need to go get all tabloid on us in a grab for the lowest common denominator - IGN'll beat you at that game anyway. The NintendoLife I love is the NintendoLife that is a positive force in the gaming community.
Hardware is a loss-leading business proposition. Even if you make profit per unit, there's still the support and R&D department, logistics and marketing. The money from hardware comes in licensing. This is why Sony, Apple and Microsoft are shifting their focuses from a hardware sell to content and services, as well as partnerships with content providers. That's where there is a margin significant enough to sustain a business. The games consoles themselves are about as profitable as printer hardware these days.
You want to debate this topic? Understand the games business first.
Comments 1,093
Re: Nintendo Reveals Its Version of iTunes For 3DS
HarmoKnight - actually, I have used the service. Obviously not on the 3DS, but the service itself, yes.
@Capt_N it won't likely come out of Japan because, while technically feasable, this music service isn't available out of Japan, and it has no licenses whatsoever, outside of Japan.
So Nintendo would need to renegotiate a music partnership with someone else for every other region in the world. It lacks the capacity to do this, I suspect.
Re: Nintendo Reveals Its Version of iTunes For 3DS
Way too little too late. On my mobile phone, tablet and Vita I have access to like 20 million songs with Music Unlimited.
There is nothing this service can offer that anyone with another mobile device can't get a better version off.
Re: Review: Style Savvy: Trendsetters (3DS)
Hey good review. Good to see this game gets a fair review from at least one source.
Re: Talking Point: Nintendo Takes One Step Forward, One Back With Retail Downloads
I'm pretty happy with the way Nintendo is approaching retail downloads. It's maintaining a premium price (which I am in support of), and it's surprisingly rapidly catching up to the other three platform holders - It took a year or so from when Sony started offering retail downloads to when games would see a simultaneous retail/ download release.
Nintendo needed to catch up with this and quick because the specialist retailers are quickly headed the way of the dinosaur, so good moves Nintendo. Now just switch over to account-based content and I'll be a happy camper.
Re: Teens Losing Interest In Social Gaming, Turning To Traditional Consoles
@theblackdragon I've emailed them. This is just an academic discussion at this stage.
Apologies to Damo for the criticism at the start of this - if it's wrong it's clearly on Gamasutra, not NintendoLife
Re: Teens Losing Interest In Social Gaming, Turning To Traditional Consoles
@theblackdragon Ok, so I've done a bit of research. That report, produced by Michael Olson on behalf of Piper Jaffrey (an investment bank, for the record, not an "analyst firm") was produced because Piper Jaffrey has downgraded Zynga's share value to "neutral." The basis of this downgrade was based on overwhelming evidence that school kids are playing fewer social games. That's why this report exists - it was a study into Zynga's market potential:
<a rel="external" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/10/10/zynga-piper-cuts-to-neutral-as-social-gaming-trend-ebbs/">http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/10/10/zynga-piper-cuts-to-neutral-as-social-gaming-trend-ebbs/</a>
<a rel="external" href="http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/578981?source=kizur">http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/578981?source=kizur</a>
<a rel="external" href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/zynga-shares-fall-on-piper-downgrade-2012-10-10?link=MW_latest_news">http://www.marketwatch.com/story/zynga-shares-fall-on-piper-downgrade-2012-10-10?link=MW_latest_news</a>
At no stage does the coverage of the report in the financial press mention console gaming as a reason for this decline. So I went back to the Gamasutra article, and yep, my suspicion was correct - Gamasutra came up with that cause-and-effect based largely on other reports by other research groups, as well as a comparison to an older Piper Jaffray report. There are no hard-and-fast numbers as far as I can tell about console gaming numbers amongst teenagers from this report. At no stage from the research I've just done did the Piper Jaffray report itself state "kids are playing fewer social games because they are playing more console games."
Furthermore, if you look into the analyst himself, Michael Olson does not have any of the console producers under the body of companies he researches - he has some publishers like Activision Blizzard and EA, but not Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony (or even Apple). It is very unlikely that he would be researching the sales figures or interest in console gaming - these guys don't have the time to do research outside of their portfolios:
<a rel="external" href="http://www.piperjaffray.com/2col.aspx?id=7&analystid=185&title=Analyst%20Information%20for%20Michael%20Olson">http://www.piperjaffray.com/2col.aspx?id=7&analystid=185&title=Analyst%20Information%20for%20Michael%20Olson</a>
None of this stacks up to me - at best (if it was accurate reporting) it is a very poorly written news story by Gamasutra. But, more likely, it is a beat-up.
Not that I particularly blame NintendoLife for this now - Gamasutra has a well-deserved reputation for accurate reporting. But I strongly suspect they got this one very wrong.
Re: Teens Losing Interest In Social Gaming, Turning To Traditional Consoles
@theblackdragon True, but there is still no indication that a drop off in social gaming is causing an uptick in console gaming.
Don't forget - the report also specifically states that the console business is still dropping off itself. This isn't a case of "7 per cent fewer teens play social games, and magically 7 per cent more teens play console games." That would be a clear and direct link. This is "less people playing social games, and the console business with needs remains robust, considering the downturn in other demographics."
I just don't see any hard data that states the 7 per cent or so of students that stopped playing social games have started playing console games. Especially when there is no data whatsoever about teenagers playing phone games.
It may well be that there is the link there, but Gamasutra has not made this clear, and without any access to the report, there's no way to verify the inferences that everyone is making here.
Re: Teens Losing Interest In Social Gaming, Turning To Traditional Consoles
@theblackdragon TBD - I just had another look (I'll happily admit I skimmed it this morning), and I'm still not seeing the direct correlation between Teenagers playing social games less because they were more interested in console gaming.
What I see is the following - Teenagers are playing social games yes. Teenagers are more comfortable with downloading AAA-grade games rather than buying physical copies, and the entire console market is down, but the youth segment remains relatively robust.
There is no information to suggest that teenagers are swapping FarmVille for Call of Duty. That's an inference people are making.
One of the posters above posted the inference I would have been making - that teens are playing Angry Birds and other phone games instead of social games.
Gamasutra is making inferences too, and I'm not happy about that at all. A community website is one thing - an industry publication really shouldn't be drawing connections without hard evidence to conclusively demonstrate the link.
Re: Factory Fire Will Not Affect Wii U Production
@HarmoKnight - read back your first post. You seemed to think that the entire lot - 7.3 million units of Wii U - had been "sold out."
That is incorrect. Amazingly enough, there are other nations in the world. These other nations are getting Wii Us shipped to them as well - so some of that 7.3 million is not actually getting sent to America.
And aside from America I've yet to see a report that the Wii U had sold out anywhere else.
So, no, you're wrong to think that Nintendo has "sold 7.3 million Wii Us." That is incredibly unlikely at this stage.
Re: Factory Fire Will Not Affect Wii U Production
@ThePillowGolem Oh absolutely. It's absolutely impossible to predict how many consoles Nintendo will sell this year with the Wii U.
It may well sell out globally. That would be surprising, but not outside of the realm of possibility.
Re: Factory Fire Will Not Affect Wii U Production
@HarmoKnight That's nice. I'm glad you're happy that you're wrong.
Re: Factory Fire Will Not Affect Wii U Production
Harmo Knight. They're sold out in the US. Nowhere else to the best of my recollection.
Re: Teens Losing Interest In Social Gaming, Turning To Traditional Consoles
Damien, can you please clarify where the report specifically states that kids are playing fewer social games because they are playing consoles instead? Right now it reads like you made that association up and as everyone should know, that is taking two and two and getting seven.
Re: Bridgestone Responds to Sony's "Kevin Butler" Lawsuit
@ThePillowGolem I've tried speaking reasonably with people in the past. The problem with being reasonable is that it only works when the other side of the debate is also being reasonable. With certain people that's just become a completely pointless exercise.
If you are a frequent visitor to the forums you'd see that when people are actually interested in being engaging and reasonable, so am I.
Re: Bridgestone Responds to Sony's "Kevin Butler" Lawsuit
@Zombie_Barioth Complaining? No. Setting the record straight. Too many people seem to think that just because they can voice an opinion that 1) it makes them right, and 2) they're entitled to be taken seriously.
No, and no. If people were more concerned about being factually correct, than simply being about to say anything and hiding behind it as 'having an opinion', the whole world would be in a far better place.
Re: Bridgestone Responds to Sony's "Kevin Butler" Lawsuit
When. HarmoKnight. When have I ever defended another company or individual actually stealing IP from Nintendo? Find me one genuine example in any of my posts on NintendoLife (or anywhere else on the Internet, ever) and I will happily apologise to you.
Here's the difference between you and I. I actually have qualifications in media law. I know what I'm talking about. I would never defend plagiarism or patent infringement. In fact, I hate the very thought of either.
Your idea of both is "did Nintendo do something similar? Yes? STEALING."
Re: Bridgestone Responds to Sony's "Kevin Butler" Lawsuit
@Gamer83 You're right. Sony, a company of 162,000 employees, is run by a bunch of pea-brained morons.
I bet Gamer83 with his wealth of management experience would be able to do a far better job.
Once again. Armchair experts. Always reckon they know more than the actual experts.
Re: Bridgestone Responds to Sony's "Kevin Butler" Lawsuit
@HarmoKnight If it was genuinely unfair then the courts will throw it out. "Unfair according to some dude that hasn't read the precise wording of the contract and doesn't have a degree in law," is not really a perspective of strength.
Re: Bridgestone Responds to Sony's "Kevin Butler" Lawsuit
Armchair 'experts' are JUST AWESOME. Whoever needs lawyers any more. We should just ask Nintendolife for their balanced and informed judgements on all matters.
Re: Reggie: Time Spent on Rival Devices is a Missed Opportunity For Nintendo
Damo - how many content companies does Nintendo own? What resources does it have to scope out major partnerships?
This isn't a matter of just sticking a TV card into the console. If Nintendo wants to compete with Apple, Sony, Microsoft, the telecommunications companies themselves and a HOST of smaller niche players, then Nintendo is going to need to make massive investments.
That is precisely what Sony did - invest in being a content rather than device supplier, as content is the cruicial product in entertainment services. It has put the company in a dire financial situation.
At best Nintendo's non-gaming entertainment offerings is going to amount to a tenth-rung, substandard service. The only people that will ever bother with it are the people that don't use Apple, Google, Microsoft and other products. Ever.
That's almost no one, and certainly not enough to support any real push by Nintendo.
Re: Reggie: Time Spent on Rival Devices is a Missed Opportunity For Nintendo
So Nintendo thinks of itself as an "entertainment" company because it uses Mario and Zelda and has some casual game franchise for the grandparents to play along with. Good to know he can interchange "gaming" with "entertainment" when it suits his marketing message.
Reggie's fooling himself if he actually thinks that Nintendo has any potential play outside of interactive software. It's like, last, in a long, long stream of competition.
Re: Wii U Resellers Captilise On Demand By Fleecing Consumers
Uh. This is supply and demand in action.
Re: Kevin Butler Actor Seen Near Wii Console... Sony Takes Him to Court
"and not, "Jerry Lambert is not supposed to appear alongside a Nintendo product." Which is what I based my argument off of."
The thing is that when there is a specially recognisable face, then the actor and character are often considered for commercial purposes inseparable. Again, this would be in the contract, as I would assume Sony would not sue without some evidence backing it up.
@Raptor78 Sony's music (and film) divisions are run entirely separate to the other Sony business units. They have different managing directors, different legal teams, and different approaches to marketing. Big companies like Sony tend to be competitive in some areas with other big companies, and allies in others.
"I just dont understand Sony sometimes."
I wouldn't worry about that. You're in the majority there.
Re: Kevin Butler Actor Seen Near Wii Console... Sony Takes Him to Court
@HarmoKnight Nah bro. What's low is when people who don't know anything about a subject use a public forum to express their completely uninformed opinions. Because then there's the chance that someone might read the comment, think it's a good idea, and then take that ignorance into the world as fact.
My momma always told me that if I don't know what I'm talking about, I should shut up. I think a few million people on the internet should have learned that same lesson.
Re: Kevin Butler Actor Seen Near Wii Console... Sony Takes Him to Court
@jkshaz As long as people are in so desperate need for education, I will remain on this pedestal. One would hope that by pointing out how silly they are being, people will stop voicing silly opinions and expecting to be taken seriously. Unfortunately we seem to live in a world where sheer ignorance is protected by calling it an "opinion."
But I continue to fight the good fight.
@grimbldoo - actually what you said means absolutely nothing whatsoever if Lambert signed a contract with a clause not to represent competitive brands.
Believe it or not but we live in a society where "BUT MUM ITS MY FACE" is not an acceptable excuse for breaching a contract. Not when you've associated your face with a brand in a legally-binding contract.
See how I keep using the word "contract?" That's because that's the bit that's important here. You, sir, clearly don't understand "non-compete" clauses. I would bet my house it is such a clause that is why Sony is able to sue over this.
Re: Kevin Butler Actor Seen Near Wii Console... Sony Takes Him to Court
@grimbldoo As Lambert's face was for many years associated exclusively with Sony, it was likely written into his contract from the very start that he would not represent a competitive brand.
By being associated with a Nintendo product, however tangentally, Lambert likely breached this noncompete clause in his contract and Sony would be well within its rights to seek damages.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you analyse contract law. Believe it or not, contract law doesn't work like high school playground politics.
Re: Kevin Butler Actor Seen Near Wii Console... Sony Takes Him to Court
1) some people here are clearly not contract lawyers. Not sure why these people are in any way qualified to comment on contract law.
2) this article - especially that headline and sub - are clear trollbait. No doubt you got a lot of traffic from it though. Congrats.
Re: Could This Be The Finished Wii U Interface?
Well that looks lovely and generic.
Re: Nintendo: Phones And Tablets Aren't Games Devices
Oh here's one I can field! You're entitled to an opinion, Otaku. What you're not entitled to is being right, or having that opinion taken seriously. If you can't argue a solid case for you opinion, than everyone out there has every right to point out how flawed your opinion is.
I'm off to play unreleased games again. Play nice folks.
Re: Nintendo: Phones And Tablets Aren't Games Devices
Looks like the Moon Knight has found himself as part of the Avengers.
Your play, 'rival'.
(In other words I got nothing to ad to Oddy and Gamelord's brilliant analysis of the situation. )
Re: Nintendo: Phones And Tablets Aren't Games Devices
Wow. You mean a Nintendo PR manager, working for a company that doesn't produce Smartphones or games for Smartphones, and has lost a lot of customers to smartphones, is critical of smartphones as gaming devices?
Could it be maybe, just mabye, this is what we in journalism call 'PR speak?' Surely the editors of Nintendolife would never have dreamed of such an unethical practice as promoting PR speak as editorial coverage.
... Oh. Ah well, I guess the 250+ comments pretty much justifies anything.
Re: Wii U eShop "More Open, Social and Indie-Friendly" Than Wii
Well played, good sir.
Re: Wii U eShop "More Open, Social and Indie-Friendly" Than Wii
Didn't Toshiba discontinue its tablet business?
Not to say they're not good quality, but... Well, you would be the first to say they're good quality
Re: Wii U eShop "More Open, Social and Indie-Friendly" Than Wii
Oh, so sales figures mean quality now?
And here I was sure that you were one of those people that don't think the iPad is a good gaming device. I must have been mistaken, because, you know, ten times the 3DS' sales figures clearly, by your logic, means ten times superior gaming device
Re: Wii U eShop "More Open, Social and Indie-Friendly" Than Wii
I'll believe this when I see it. eShop was meant to be an improvement, too, but it's improvements were so small that Nintendo managed to lose ground on the competition.
I mean, the Vita has the freaking PSN and PSPlus! eShop gets like, one dinky little download game a week, and one Virtual Console release. No premium service, either.
Re: Sony: Wii U is Targeting "Niche Early Adopter Market" This Holiday
StrawHat - oh, because of two reasons - 1) I would screw up somehow and blow up my PS3 by opening it up to chuck in a better HD, and 2) the console is 3-4 years old now and I use it daily. It'll likely start to fail on me soon anyway.
Thank God for Cloud saves and PSPlus.
3Dash - Usually I have 10 on rotation. It's nice to not have to download 25GB games again though if I need to delete them to free up space. Or to think of it another way - How many discs do you have? I'm sure it's more than the number of games you're playing at any one time.
Re: Sony: Wii U is Targeting "Niche Early Adopter Market" This Holiday
3Dash - you mean for services that have real games for download, not WiiWare's mini game gallery?
There are 20-25gb games for download on PSN. I have a 250GB HD on my PS3, and I can only fit a small fraction of my games on it. In fact I am going to buy the new PS3 solely for tha expanded HD.
And finally - what does 'do you need it' have to do with this discussion? It exists, and it was misreporting to claim that the only new PS3 model Sony has in the market was a 12GB one.
Re: Sony: Wii U is Targeting "Niche Early Adopter Market" This Holiday
Nice to see regard for the facts here. Like how the new PS3 also has a 500GB model for sale.
Oh hang on. I just needed to point that out here. NOW all the facts are out there.
Also, this guy is just stating a fact. The reason that they call the demographic 'early adopters' is because they're the first ones to buy a console. And who will be the people buying Wii Us this Christmas? The first people to buy Wii Us in the world. Ergo, early adopters.
But don't let any of these facts get in the way of whatever everyone up there is doing.
Re: Sonic Racing Transformed Frame Rate Issues Have Been Solved
I like how everyone is ignoring the fact that the only advantage the Wii U has over the other consoles, the gamepad, is badly used here, and that apparently still hasn't been fixed.
I'll just get it for $7 rather than $110 (Australian) on the iPad. lol.
Re: GAME: UK Pre-Orders Are "Exceeding Expectations"
I spoke to the folks at EB Games here (the only game-focused retailer in Australia) and they are really unhappy with Wii U preorders here.
Obviously Australia is only like 4 per cent of the global gaming market, but still.
Re: Wii U Will Be Playable At EB Expo 2012 In Sydney
I'll bring you back a gift bad, Navi ^_^
Re: Pressure Group Makes Fresh Calls For Nintendo To Embrace Mobile Phones
While I admit I didn't word it especially well, my own comments are with regards to the prevailing attitude that in isolation the hardware business is worth keeping. It's not. Were it not for licenses and Nintendo's own software, the hardware side of Nintendo's business would be nothing - a tiny, if not bankrupted company. What I was getting at (very badly, reading back on it now, my apologies) is that the overall cost of hardware (including logistics, R & D etc) is typically a loss leading practice, because for most top hardware companies, it's rather unnecessary for the hardware division to turn an overall profit.
The value in hardware is the associated content and services. That's where competitive differentiation comes from, and that's where Nintendo's ability to even earn a worthwhile profit on its consoles comes from. If Nintendo didn't have content and services, all Nintendo could compete with in hardware is price, and as we've seen with the TV industry, commodity competition is not necessarily a healthy one right now. Especially for Japanese corporations that have higher working costs than their Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean counterparts.
The relevance of this to the topic at hand? The assumption that Nintendo's hardware business is crucial to its survival or profitability. It is, but not because of the actual sale of hardware - as some have inferred. The value in the hardware is from the licensing side of things. Even if Nintendo has costed to profit on Wii U hardware overall, it's not necessary in the slightest, and I am a little surprised that Nintendo didn't follow industry trend to loss-lead with the Wii U. I guess they're working on the basis that the third party support is strong and will remain so, even if they don't sell quite as many units as they would have by loss leading.
And I hope that is somewhat clearer. This has been a long day.
Re: North America, Here Are Your 23 Wii U Launch Titles
That is a fairly impressive lineup.
For anyone who hasn't played it yet, Warriors Orochi's the way to go. That game is all kinds of awesome.
Re: Pressure Group Makes Fresh Calls For Nintendo To Embrace Mobile Phones
I sincerely hope LavaTwillight was the one being sarcastic :-/
Re: Pressure Group Makes Fresh Calls For Nintendo To Embrace Mobile Phones
I like how I said that the money from hardware comes from licensing, and then I was corrected by someone telling me the money from hardware comes from licensing.
And @Damo I realise that this kind of article appeals to a lot of people on a Nintendo fan site, but people who buy The Sun don't buy it because they are not interested in its content, either.
You guys are better than this. You guys are one of the best gaming websites out there. No need to go get all tabloid on us in a grab for the lowest common denominator - IGN'll beat you at that game anyway. The NintendoLife I love is the NintendoLife that is a positive force in the gaming community.
Re: Wii U Will Be Playable At EB Expo 2012 In Sydney
Remind me to email you over my phone so we can catch up on the Saturday at least!
Re: Pressure Group Makes Fresh Calls For Nintendo To Embrace Mobile Phones
Hardware is a loss-leading business proposition. Even if you make profit per unit, there's still the support and R&D department, logistics and marketing. The money from hardware comes in licensing. This is why Sony, Apple and Microsoft are shifting their focuses from a hardware sell to content and services, as well as partnerships with content providers. That's where there is a margin significant enough to sustain a business. The games consoles themselves are about as profitable as printer hardware these days.
You want to debate this topic? Understand the games business first.
Re: Wii U Will Be Playable At EB Expo 2012 In Sydney
Not quite. We DO miss out on 99% of eShop stuff (may or may not be a slight exaggeration there)
Re: Wii U Will Be Playable At EB Expo 2012 In Sydney
Definitely Saturday and Sunday. possibly Friday. You?
Re: Wii U Will Be Playable At EB Expo 2012 In Sydney
Oh this is great news. Finally going to get to play me some Wii U.